I am now a year into my apprenticeship - where has the time gone?
In fact, I think this has been the quickest year of my life so far and one of the most interesting. I've had some great opportunities to use all the different skills I am gaining.
One of the best parts of my role is helping to plan events for various stakeholders - including staff, tenants and helping charities within our 'Helping Hands' project. I also help to create promotional literature for the events and order merchandise and resources. This is a really fun part of what the Comms team do as you can speak to new people and be creative.
During the event, one member of the Comms team will sometimes go along, taking some photos and finding out what thoughts are on the event so we can write up a press release later on, update social media platforms when we get back to the office and update the website.
Two Rivers have recently branched out into the realms of Instagram and we have been slowly building up followers and updating it along with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and 24 Dash.
The 'Helping hands' project, which I mentioned briefly above, is a volunteering scheme that encourages all of the members of staff here at Two Rivers to get out into the community for one day a year and gift their time to a charitable cause. I have been very involved in organising events for this project, which continues to be a positive experience.
Four things I've learnt (so far):
Take every chance to learn and grow further
There have been loads of times when I have got involved in side projects to learn more about the business as a whole and not just my specific tasks. It is always a valuable experience to know about other people in your work environment and their skillsets.
Ask questions if you don't understand
This is something that took me quite a while to learn because I didn't want to be a burden on the team. I realised that I was more of a burden if I couldn't complete something so it is always best to make sure you know everything you need to and complete a task well.
Sleep is more important than ever
Being young and having a pretty good social life can take its toll, especially in the summer, when a lot of my friends had six weeks of holiday. This has made me realise to keep a good balance between having fun and making sure I am ready for another busy work day. I make sure I have at least eight hours of sleep.
Plan ahead
Using tools such as calendars and to-do lists gives me a visual way of seeing the things I need to achieve within a time frame.
The most I grew at Two Rivers as an employee and in myself was when I took the reigns of the team for two weeks, while my manager was on holiday. There were tasks that were handed to me that I didn't even know went on in the background; simple things like collecting and going through the papers and making sure to check social media every day.
As well as this, other employees approached me for jobs and realised that I was approachable for the same tasks as the rest of the team, it put me on the map, if you will! Liaising directly with more teams has really done me well. The two weeks I spent speaking to new people and making myself get up and speak to people directly instead of emailing was really beneficial to my development.
I now get specific projects directly and staff trust that I will do just as good a job as anyone else in the team. It's also helpful for my manager as she doesn't have to work out my workload for me which is less time consuming for her.
Doing an apprenticeship was a great decision for me. I'm sure it's not for everyone but the freedom, creativity and new opportunities gave me a massive head start in maturity and business understanding.
I am very excited for the future.
Annabelle x
